


The Way We Break

by Rhiannon87



Series: Some Sort of Crazy [7]
Category: Uncharted
Genre: Established Relationship, Estrangement, F/M, Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to work this time. Nate and Elena, from Nepal to Yemen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way We Break

**Author's Note:**

> This is the revised/rewritten version of the fic. The original can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/409219).

It had taken Nate far, far too long to tell Elena that he loved her.

Coming so close to losing her should have made it easy. But the bone-deep terror only woke him up in the middle of the night, gasping and blindly reaching for her to assure himself that she was okay, she'd lived, she was fine. It didn't do a thing to keep him from choking on the words.

Elena had been at his place for nearly two weeks when she started talking about going back home. Nate was fine with it, at first, until she clarified that she was going back alone. "I need some time," she said, holding both his hands in hers. "After everything that happened in Nepal, I just... I need to get my feet back under me, you know?"

"I guess."

"And I need to figure out if I still have a job," she added. Nate nodded, still frowning, and Elena leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Stop pouting. I just need a few weeks. Okay?"

Her flight left in three days, and Nate knew he had to tell her before she left. But having a deadline looming over him just made it harder. The more he thought about it, the more nervous he got, and he found himself giving her kisses or hugs when he should have been saying he loved her.

So when he did finally get the words out, he wasn't thinking about it at all. They were cuddling on the couch, watching some superhero movie that Elena had picked, though Nate was only half paying attention. He was pretty much broke, and if he wanted to pay for his flight to see Elena-- to say nothing of next month's rent-- he'd need to find work, and fast. Sully could loan him the cash to finance their next job, as soon as he figured out what that next job would be.

Elena laughed at something on the screen, and Nate looked down at her, his financial worries fading for a moment. He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her hair. "Love you," he murmured, and then froze because he'd actually _said_ it, out loud and everything.

Elena seemed to go still, too, then leaned away from him a little. Nate swallowed hard and tried not to look terrified. But she didn't leave; she just looked up at him with a blinding, relieved smile, then leaned up to kiss him. "Love you, too," she said when they parted.

Nate let out a startled, breathy laugh at that. He hadn't quite expected the way hearing those words would make his heart stutter. It was almost enough to drown out the panic. He kissed her again, for lack of any other ideas, and he could feel her smiling against his lips. He'd told her he loved her, and she'd said she loved him, and everything was okay. Everything would be okay.

*

Elena scrolled through her inbox one last time, then deliberately and decisively closed her laptop. Done. She wasn't looking at her work for the next day or two; Nate's flight got in tomorrow morning, and she wanted to give him her undivided attention. It had been about three weeks since she'd left his place in Key West and finally come back home. She'd needed the time to get back to work, to get her head on straight, before she and Nate tried to figure out how they were going to make their relationship work. Leaning on him for support sometimes was okay, but she wanted to be his partner, not someone he had to carry all the time.

She did her final circuit of the apartment, checking to make sure the door was locked and the lights were off, before heading back to her room to change into her pajamas. She'd gone grocery shopping earlier in the week, and hopefully she had enough food and coffee to cover the two of them for a little while. There wasn't an exact end date on this visit; part of the reason he was coming out here was so they could work out the long-distance aspect of their relationship. Neither of them wanted to go back to the way things had been before, only seeing each other in-person once a month. But living on opposite sides of the country more or less meant that one of them would have to move.

Elena sighed as she stepped into the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush. Hopefully they'd actually come to some kind of decision. Nate was... he was trying, she knew that, but he was still pretty gun-shy about commitment. He loved her, though, so he was making an effort at getting better. That mattered.

She'd just finished brushing her teeth when someone knocked on the door. She frowned and shut off the faucet, switching the hall light back on as she made her away across the apartment. It was close to midnight, who the hell would be at her place this late--

She peered through the peephole, gasped, and wrenched the door open. "What are you doing here!?" she asked, even as she threw herself into Nate's arms.

He laughed and dropped his bag to the floor, lifting her off her feet for a moment as he hugged her back. "Got an earlier flight," he said. "I-I hope that's okay, I just, I couldn't wait to see you..."

"Of course it's okay." Elena drew back and put her hand to his cheek, smiling so hard her face hurt. They'd talked on the phone every day since she left, but that couldn't compare to actually having him here. "I missed you."

"Missed you, too." Nate slid one hand into her hair as he leaned down to kiss her. Elena sighed against his mouth and looped her arms around his neck. Sweet as these reunions were, she didn't want to do it anymore. She didn't want to miss him.

They eventually came up for air, and Elena unwound her arms from around him so she could take his hand. Nate grabbed his bag again as she pulled him into the apartment. "You slept on the plane, right?"

"Mm-hm." He grinned, knowing full well why she was asking, and tossed his bag on the couch. Before Elena could tell him to just bring it into the bedroom, he stepped forward and scooped her up into his arms. She laughed and reached out to hit the hall light switch as they passed.

*

Nate didn't really officially move in with Elena, still had his apartment in Key West, but more and more of his things wound up at her place as time went on. He had his own set of keys to her apartment, and when they were both in the States, he usually stayed with her. It took some getting used to, but they managed, figured out how to split up chores and bills and late-night runs to the corner store for milk. And they tended to travel together too, at least in part-- Elena would land a story, Nate would research nearby potential ruins to raid or hit up his local contacts for work, and off they'd go. They'd get to spend at least part of the trip together before he took off, disappearing into the remote parts of the world to seek out lost treasures with Sully or other, less trustworthy partners.

Things were good, really, when he stepped back and thought about it. Different, but still good. It didn't do a damn thing to ease the fear that had taken up permanent residence in the back of his mind after Nepal.

There were a lot of things in life that scared him. Getting shot at or falling off a ledge or those demon-yeti-Guardian things. But he could _do_ something about all of those-- shoot back or grab a new handhold or run like hell. With Elena, though... There were so many things about being with her that terrified him, and he couldn't do anything about it. He was scared that one day he'd tell her he loved her and she wouldn't say it back. He was scared that she'd come to the obvious conclusion that he didn't deserve her, that she could do better, and leave him.

More than that, though, he was scared that she'd die. She'd nearly bled to death in his arms, and the heart-stopping, bone-deep _terror_ of that moment never really went away. He knew what it did to him, losing someone he loved, knew what it felt like as the jagged, bleeding wounds left behind turned into hollow spaces inside him. The thought of Elena becoming another one of those empty, aching spaces... It kept him up at night, watching her sleep and silently reassuring himself, over and over, that she was okay, she was here, she was alive.

She never would have been in Flynn's path if not for him, and he swore he wouldn't make that mistake again. So when he found work near her stories, when he took off on his own treasure hunting expeditions, he kept the details to himself. Sometimes he lied about where he was going; other times he snuck out so he wouldn't have to lie to her face. He couldn't risk her following him and getting involved again. Her own work was dangerous enough without adding his enemies and risks to the mix.

Elena hated it, of course. She hated being left out of the loop, hated when he lied to her, and his insistence on doing both caused more than a few fights between them. Nate hated it when she was mad at him, but he'd deal with it. It was the price to pay to keep her safe, and if that meant shouting matches and sleeping on the couch, then so be it.

*

He did it because he loved her. Elena kept telling herself that, over and over, every time she caught Nate in a lie or sneaking out in the middle of the night. He wanted to protect her, keep her from getting hurt again. She understood that, better than he realized. He wasn’t the only one who’d nearly lost someone he loved up in the mountains of Nepal.

But knowing he did it out of love didn’t make it any easier to deal with. They fought about it frequently, and every time, he’d apologize… but he wouldn’t change. He’d keep cutting her out of his work, leaving out details of where and who and how until it was all over and he came home with a new set of bruises and a duffel bag full of cash.

It was the one glaring problem in an otherwise great relationship. She’d been nervous, at first, when they’d decided to give this a shot; things had already fallen apart between them once before. But he was trying, she could tell, he was trying to make things work this time. And as the months went on, she started to let her guard down a bit. Started to trust that he was going to stick around, that he’d be there to do the dishes after she made dinner and to spend lazy Saturdays cuddling together on the couch with their books. She still wasn’t sure how long this would last, didn’t let herself think about things like forever or the rest of their lives, but it was a start.

Even when he took off on a job, he’d let her know that he was okay, if nothing else. Usually nothing else, honestly, but at least she’d know if he was alive.

She had a story in Brussels, the last week consumed with reading policy briefs and chasing down EU officials. Nate had taken off in the middle of the day, sent her a text telling her he had a job in the area with a friend, he'd catch up with her when he could. It left a leaden weight of disappointment sitting in her chest, but she ignored it, kept doing her job.

It was a nice night, and after her crew packed up from a day of embassy interviews, Elena decided to walk back to the hotel. Give her a chance to clear her head after the long day, and resign herself to sleeping alone tonight. And for however many nights until Nate came back. She sighed and glanced around before hurrying across the street. Maybe a stop at the hotel bar was in order--

Tires screeched behind her, and she spun around, scanning the street and instinctively grabbing for a gun she wasn't carrying. The car wasn't in sight yet, though she could hear it drawing closer. Mere moments later, Nate and another man came barreling out of an alley. The other man pointed off down the street, towards what Elena knew was a dead end. Shit.

She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled sharply. Nate looked over, did a double-take, and almost tripped over his own feet. "This way!" she called, and she saw a look of dismay flicker across his face before he changed direction and sprinted towards her.

"Come on," he said, grabbing her arm as he tore past. "Gotta get outta sight--" Elena pulled her arm free and took off running after him. What had he gotten himself into _this_ time?

Nate abruptly turned into another alley; when Elena rounded the corner, he was halfway up the wall of a closed shop, his friend close behind. Elena followed them up to the roof and threw herself flat, even as a car came to a stop in the street below. "Fan out," someone said. "They can't have gone far."

She glanced over at Nate and raised an eyebrow; he winced guiltily and shrugged. On Nate's other side, his friend quietly cleared his throat. "Take it you two know each other?" he asked in a thick London accent.

Nate nodded and turned to look at him. "Yeah," he said, and Elena could hear the faint note of pride in his voice. "This is Elena."

"Oh!" His friend grinned in recognition, then held out a hand over Nate's back. "Charlie Cutter. Nice to finally meet the lady in all Nate's stories."

Elena grinned back and shook his hand. So Nate bragged about her to his friends. That was... really sweet, actually. It didn’t make up for the lying and evasiveness, but it was nice to know he wasn’t out pretending she didn’t exist or something. “So, what mess are you in this time?” she asked, looking back at Nate.

He sighed and made a face. “Elena, I don’t know…”

Oh, god, he was actually trying to keep her out of this while they were hiding on a roof from whoever he’d pissed off now. “I’m already involved,” she said, glaring at him. “And you know damn well I can handle myself.”

“We could use the help, mate,” Charlie added.

Nate groaned and buried his head in his folded arms. “Fine,” he said. “You win.”

It was a little irritating that he seemed so unhappy about her joining them, but they could discuss that later. “So,” Elena began, turning her attention to Charlie, “what _are_ you two up to?”

It turned out to be a fairly straightforward reclamation job—artifacts that had been stolen from a museum in Mexico City recently turned up in the property of a wealthy banker here in Belgium. The banker was refusing to surrender them and was dragging his feet on producing documentation proving that he’d acquired them legally. The benefactor who’d donated the artifacts to the museum in the first place didn’t want to waste any more time, and had hired Nate and Charlie to simply steal them back. He’d then re-donate them to the museum—hopefully with some funding for better security, Nate added. The people chasing them were the banker’s private security, who they’d have to deal with before they could get close to the artifacts.

They managed to escape the rooftops, eventually, and made their way back to Charlie's getaway car. The new plan, made with surprisingly minimal objection from Nate, was for Elena to be the new driver while the two of them tried a second break-in—the logic being that the security force wouldn't expect them to come back so fast. And they knew the layout of the house now, so they'd be able to get in and out with less confusion.

It went smoothly enough, even if the guys came out running and Elena had to spend an hour driving around the city before all three of them were confident they hadn't been followed. Charlie left the two of them back at the hotel in the small hours of the morning; he and Nate were flying to Mexico tomorrow to hand-deliver the artifacts, but for now, Elena had Nate all to herself.

"You're okay?" Nate asked as he followed her into the hotel room.

Elena turned around to face him and shook her head. "Of course, Nate, I'm fine." She spread her arms to let him see her perfectly unharmed state. "Seems like the worst any of us was risking was jail time."

He shrugged. "Probably."

She frowned slightly. She knew this wasn't an unusual sort of job for Nate—he preferred it when he could just crawl around ancient ruins, but he'd take on these thief-for-hire gigs from time to time. Nothing that really merited keeping it a secret. "So...you probably could have told me the details up front," she continued.

Another shrug. "Yeah."

He at least had the decency to sound guilty. "Keep that in mind next time?" she said. "You can tell me what you're doing and where you're going, and in the unlikely event I do get involved, things will probably be fine." Elena let out a sharp breath and shook her head. "You know I can handle myself."

Nate huffed out a laugh. "That's never been in doubt," he said with a smile. Elena wanted to keep talking, wanted to get him to promise he'd stop being so damn evasive, but he stepped forward and kissed her. And she was tired, and he was leaving in the morning, and so she kissed him back instead. They could talk later, she told herself. When he got home.

*

Nate was sitting on the bed and slowly losing the battle to keep reading his book instead of shamelessly staring at his girlfriend. Elena had her headphones on as she put away her laundry, humming snatches of songs under her breath and occasionally dancing between the pile of clean clothes and the closet.

It was one of the cutest things he’d ever seen.

She happened to look his way and flashed him a smile before turning away to hang up her shirts. Nate smiled back automatically, and it lingered even after she looked away. It had taken him a while to get used to this, sharing the mundane parts of his life with someone else. Most of his past romantic relationships had started with adventure and been fueled by adrenaline—not to say he didn’t like them or care about them, because he did, but he'd always kept his life separate.

And now he’d been living with Elena for the past few months. The adventure was still there, of course, trips around the world for her job or his, but it wasn’t the only thing holding them together. He’d never expected that letting his life get so tangled up with someone else would make him this happy. But it was different with her. Nate smiled to himself, watching as Elena did a little half-twirl in time to her music, and shook his head. He’d be happy spending the rest of his life like this.

Then he realized what he’d just thought and his brain sort of screeched to a halt. Nate quickly glanced back at his book so that if Elena looked at him again, she'd assume he was frowning at it and not at her. Okay, so: the rest of his life with Elena. He tried the thought out, turned it over in his head, and it wasn’t quite as terrifying as he'd expected. There was definitely some terror there, but the general sense of _right_ kind of overpowered the fear. He loved her, she made him happy, and he was pretty sure she felt the same way about him.

This could work, he realized, a slow smile spreading across his face. This could be really good.

“Good book?” Elena asked, her voice suddenly close by, and Nate looked up to see her standing by the side of the bed. She’d taken her earbuds out, and she tilted her head to the side as she studied his face.

“You wanna get married?” The words were out before he could think about it, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t sure he’d have actually said it if he’d let himself think about it.

Elena’s eyes went huge. “What?”

“Do you want to get married?” he repeated.

She still looked stunned. “Nate, are you—are you proposing?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess I am.”

Elena stared at him for a couple more seconds, her face tensing with nervousness, then took a single, deep breath. “You’re serious?”

Nate swallowed hard and nodded. This was a lot of questions in response to what should have been a pretty straightforward yes-or-no. “Yeah,” he said. “I—I mean it. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, so… Will you marry me?”

She searched his face, then put a hand to her mouth as she started to smile. “Yes,” she said, nodding. “I’ll marry you.” She laughed and nodded again. “Yes.”

Nate laughed, too, almost giddy with relief and smiling so hard it hurt. He held his arms out to her and pulled her onto the bed, then hugged her tight as he rolled over so they were both on their sides. Elena hugged him back, her face buried in his shoulder, and she took a deep, shaky breath. Nate drew back enough to see her face. She was smiling at him, though she still looked shocked and her eyes were glittering suspiciously. “Are you crying?”

She shook her head and freed one hand enough to wipe at her eyes. “No, just—just happy.”

“Me, too.” He ducked his head and kissed her, and he had no idea how they were actually going to go about making it official, but they would. He’d sign the papers and wear the ring and promise to love her for the rest of his life. He was probably going to wind up doing that last part anyway, so it shouldn’t be that hard.

*

In some ways—most ways, Elena thought—being married to Nate wasn’t all that different from dating him. They’d already been living together most of the time, sharing a bed and a closet and a coffee maker, with Nate going back to his place in Florida less and less often as the months went by. He still made her coffee on the rare days when he got up first and hid little sketches for her around their apartment. She still made them dinner most nights and picked up new pencils whenever she noticed his stash was running low. They spent a lot of evenings cuddled up together on the couch, sometimes watching a movie, sometimes working on their own things, but still together.

The differences, though… they were little things, but they mattered. How quickly they both got into the habit of slipping on their rings in the morning. The goofy, faintly stunned smile she saw on Nate’s face whenever he referred to her as his wife. The slow but undeniable sense of relief as Elena settled into the idea that Nate was going to stay. He had commitment issues, she’d always known that, but he’d been the one to propose, to suggest one of the biggest commitments of them all. He was making an effort to change, to be better at this whole relationship thing, for her sake. And that mattered. It mattered a lot.

She tried to remember that, on the days when he was driving her crazy. He was getting better about telling her when he was about to disappear on a job, where he was going and if he had backup. But he was still lighter on the details than she liked, and his over-protectiveness was the cause of more than a few arguments. And to be fair, she wasn’t always the best at communication, either. She’d worked hard to develop tight emotional control in her work, especially on camera, and that sometimes spilled over to her personal life. Nate wore his heart on his sleeve, and she’d always been able to read him easily; he didn’t have the same advantage on her, and she knew he got frustrated by it. She was trying to separate her work attitude from home, to let herself relax more around him.

So it wasn’t perfect, but she didn’t want perfect—she wanted him, messy, complicated flaws and all. She wanted the life they were building together. And as the months went by and they both settled into the new patterns of married life, she started to let herself think about the future. Their future, together. They’d work past the worst of the problems, learn to live around the rest, and she’d get to spend the rest of her life with him by her side.

And for a while, it seemed like that’s what he wanted, too.

*

Something kept nagging at him, like a sore tooth he couldn’t stop worrying at. It lingered in the background of those months after the wedding, some undefinable feeling that something was off. Nate couldn’t figure out what it was, and he tried his best to ignore it. He couldn’t imagine what _could_ be wrong—Elena had _married_ him, a thought that still blew him away when he remembered it. He got to spend the rest of his life with this brilliant, strong, determined, incredible woman, and he still got to travel the world and go hunting for treasure with his friends. Things were good. He was happy. But the feeling didn’t go away.

They were in Cairo, about four months after the wedding, and Nate had a lead on some ancient idols that a private collector in Iraq wanted to see returned. It was a good reason to break off from Elena’s scheduled trip; she was heading to Istanbul the day after tomorrow, and Nate had no interest in going back to Turkey. Ever. She was at an OPEC press conference right now, and Nate was pretty sure he could pack his things and leave before she got back.

He'd gathered his things from the bathroom and stepped out into the hotel room just as Elena shut the door behind her. Their eyes met, and Nate froze. Elena looked away first. “You don’t have to sneak out, you know,” she said with a sigh and tossed her notepad on the dresser.

Nate winced, but headed for his bag anyway. “I probably won’t be gone long.”

Elena snorted. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“’lena--”

“Just tell me!” she snapped. “All I want to know is where you’re going and how long I should wait before I start calling your friends to find out if you’re dead.”

“It’s not dangerous. I’ll be fine.”

She sat down on the side of the bed. “And how am I supposed to believe that if you won’t tell me where you’re going?”

He scowled at that and yanked the zipper on his bag shut. “So I’m lying again?”

Elena didn’t reply; she just folded her arms and raised an eyebrow, her lips pressed together in a thin line. And he was lying, sort of, because his work was always dangerous to some degree. Nate sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m going to Suez to get some relics back for a collector in Iraq,” he said. “Happy?”

Apparently not, going by the look on her face. “Does this involve going to Iraq?” she asked.

Nate shrugged. “Probably.”

Elena stared at him. “I’m sorry, how is a trip to Iraq not dangerous?”

“Oh, for god’s sake—I’m barely going to be in the country twelve hours.” Probably. Assuming things went according to plan. “And are you really lecturing me about running into war-torn countries? After you show up in Nepal--”

“Oh, yeah, Nepal’s a great example of safety for the two of us,” Elena cut in. She looked away, her jaw clenched, and shook her head. “I just wish you’d be a little choosier about these jobs, is all. Maybe wait for something less likely to get you killed.”

“You think I’m not being choosy already?”

“How would I know?” Elena glared at him. “It’s not like you tell me anything about what you do anymore.” Nate opened his mouth to argue, but she continued before he could get a word out. “No, you know what, forget it. It’s not worth it.”

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve gotta go,” he muttered. “My train leaves in an hour.” And the part of him that always had to have the last word drove out the next comment. “I’ll try not to blow it up this time.”

Elena didn’t exactly shudder, but she closed her eyes, her fingers clenching the comforter. He immediately felt like an ass, but it was already too late for apologies. “Be careful,” Elena said, her voice hollow.

“Yeah.” Nate picked up his bag and headed to the door. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”

He was halfway to the train station, seething and clinging to his victimhood out of a perverse sense of validation, when it all sort of clicked. That thing that had been bothering him for so long suddenly snapped into focus. He had been pickier about his work recently, turned down jobs that seemed too dangerous or would keep him away too long. Ignored the big mysteries that used to drive him. He closed a fist around the ring hanging from his neck. He’d been thinking about going after the big one again, before the whole mess in Nepal. Going after Marlowe and the mystery of the East Indies voyage. But he’d barely thought about that in months.

Nate had never cared much for being what other people wanted him to be. The idea of changing himself, of sacrificing his identity, because someone else wanted him to was horrifying. He made himself who he was today, and he'd be damned if he let that go. It had taken him too long to build up his identity, his reputation, to give it up now. This was who he was, and he wouldn't change for anyone. Not even her.

The ring bit into his palm, and he released it as he crossed the street. As soon as he got back to the States, he was calling Sully. He’d let their oldest treasure sit for far too long.

*

Elena wasn’t sure exactly when the turning point was, when Nate’s latest quest for fortune had turned into an obsession. At first, it had seemed like just another job, another historical mystery for him to solve—albeit one with more of a personal connection. He told her about Drake’s East Indies detour, showed her the research and notes he’d put together. He even told her the real story of how he got his ring with only a little prying from her. On the one hand, she was glad to finally learn how he and Sully had met, to understand the roots of their loyalty to each other. But on the other… hearing that this Marlowe woman had been willing to have a fourteen-year-old killed to get her hands on this treasure made her wonder if this was all worth it.

Nate had brushed off her concerns, and at the time, it had seemed like a normal job. But as the weeks went by, it became clear that this wasn’t normal. All the progress Nate had made on telling her about his work evaporated, and Elena kept waking up to find Nate gone, off on another trip to who-knew-where. Sometimes he’d leave a note. Other times—most times, as the months went on—she had to call him, leave voicemails that went from angry to panicked, begging him to tell her know where he was, if he was all right, when he was coming home.

Even when he was home, he wasn’t really there. He was buried in his research, coming to bed hours after her and still sound asleep when she left for work. Elena got tired of watching his portion of dinner get cold, so she just started putting whatever she didn’t want in the fridge right away. And after a while, she started cooking for herself. They barely talked anymore. Barely touched, and that was how Elena knew that things were really, truly wrong. It wasn’t just the lack of sex, though she hated that part too, but—Nate had always been incredibly tactile, seeking out physical contact. But now they sat on opposite sides of the apartment when they were working and slept on opposite sides of the bed. Nate might have still been there physically, but Elena found herself missing him all the same.

Five months or so after she’d first heard of Drake’s East Indies voyage, Elena found herself staring at Nate’s back as he rifled through his notes. Everything was spread out across the coffee table, books and maps and papers, and Elena had the not-unfamiliar urge to set it all on fire. Instead, she stepped around to the side of the couch and put her hand on his shoulder. Maybe tonight it would be different. Maybe tonight he’d listen.

“It’s getting late,” she said. “You should come to bed.”

Nate shrugged without looking up. “I’ll be there in a bit,” he replied.

Same thing he’d said every other night she’d asked in the last month. Elena yanked her hand back and shook her head. “Then don’t bother,” she said, voice shaking with fury. “Stay out here with the things you really love.”

She spun on her heel and started towards the bedroom, even as she heard Nate stand up. “Come on, Elena, that’s not fair--”

Elena slammed to a stop and whirled to face him. “No, Nate, you want to know what’s not fair—it’s not fair that you haven’t come to bed with me in weeks. It’s not fair that we’ve barely spoken in three days. It’s not fucking fair that I mean less to you than your so-called ancestor!”

She was shouting by the end, and whatever faint flickers of guilt she might have seen on his face vanished. “This is important,” he snapped. “You know that--”

“No, I don’t, because you don’t talk to me anymore! I have no idea what the point of all this is, but it can’t be worth this.” It couldn’t. He couldn’t be willing to make that trade, to give up on their marriage in exchange for another of Drake’s mysteries. If she could just make him see…

Nate rolled his eyes. “Christ, Elena, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to be a participant in this marriage,” she said. “I-I want you to come back from this.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t gone anywhere—I’m standing right here!”

“But you’re still not here.” Nate just gave her a bewildered look, and Elena sighed. “Nate, please. Just… Just give this one up. It’s not worth it.”

Nate stared at her for several long seconds, looking almost wounded. Before she could say anything else, though, his expression hardened and he shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, voice tight, as he raised a hand to wrap around his ring. “I won’t.”

Elena stared back, chest aching and eyes burning, trying to reconcile the man in front of her with the one she remembered, the man who’d blurted out a marriage proposal because he couldn’t wait another second, who sprawled on the couch with his head in her lap and talked through movies, who held her close when she woke up shaking after nightmares. “Fine,” she said hollowly. “Then don’t bother coming to bed.”

This time, when she turned around and walked away, he didn’t come after her. And she didn’t look back. She just closed the bedroom door, stripped off her clothes, and crawled into bed, being careful to bury her face in her pillow before she let herself cry.

There was a single text message waiting for her when she woke up the next morning, but she ignored it as she pulled herself out of bed. She washed her face and threw on her robe, slipping her phone in her pocket before leaving the bedroom. The apartment was quiet, but she guessed that maybe Nate was still asleep. She’d give him one last chance, she decided—either he gave up this obsession and they started some kind of couples’ counseling, or she’d walk. She didn’t want to leave him, but she couldn’t keep doing this every day…

Her thoughts trailed off as she reached the living room. The empty living room. Nate wasn’t on the couch, the coffee table was clear, his laptop was gone from his desk… Elena turned in a slow circle, her mouth going dry, as she took in the equally empty kitchen. She pulled her phone from her pocket and clicked on the screen.

It was a single text message from Sully, only four words long. _Nate’s here. I’m sorry._

And just like that, it was over.

*

Sully put up with a lot, that first week. He let Nate move back into his old room and gave him free run of the liquor cabinet and, beyond the second day, didn't question if Nate had made a mistake. At least not out loud. After twenty years, Nate knew what Sully's disapproval looked like, but he didn't care. Sully didn't get it, not really, none of them did, nobody understood how _important_ this was.

Even Sully had his limits, though, and he went out alone most nights, giving himself time away from Nate. Not that Nate could blame him. He didn't really want to be around himself much, either.

One week after he'd left, after he'd packed his notes and a duffel bag's worth of clothes and crept out of the apartment, Nate was sitting on Sully's couch and working his way through a bottle of whiskey. His notes were spread out across the table in front of him, but he hadn't been able to focus on them for an hour. Wasting time. He'd already wasted enough time, twenty damn years, but he sure as hell wasn't going to get anything else done tonight.

Nate reached for the bottle and winced as his wedding ring clinked against the glass. He took his hand back and stared at it, and all he could think about was the way Elena had smiled at him when she slipped it onto his finger for the first time. He'd been so happy, happier than he'd ever been, and now...

He yanked the ring off his finger and threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and clattered to the floor, and Nate didn't bother to watch where it landed. Instead he buried his head in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp. He didn't know who he was angriest at-- Elena or himself or his family or maybe even Drake, for leaving this damn mystery behind. After a few moments, Nate reached for the bottle again and took a swig of whiskey, grimacing as it burned down his throat. Drinking until he passed out hadn't helped any the last six nights, but hey, maybe seventh time was a charm.

When he finally peeled himself off the couch the next morning, head pounding and mouth full of cotton, Nate glanced around on the floor for his ring. His hand felt weird without it. But there was no sign of it. Probably fell into a crack in the floorboards or something, Nate decided. It was for the best. He turned away to stumble towards the bathroom and told himself that the twisting in his stomach was just from the alcohol.

Nate kept working as the weeks went on, spending most of his time buried in his research. Sully left him to it, even started to help out as the plan came together. It was a nice change, having someone support him. Made it easier to stay focused when he didn’t feel like he was letting someone down. So he devoured books and created piles of notes, scribbled all over maps and made calls to contacts around the world.

Elena took a job in Yemen about two months after he’d left. Sully was the one to tell him—Elena hadn’t contacted him once since he walked out. And she was moving on, clearly. He wondered what she’d done with all his stuff, if she’d stored it or sold it or set it on fire.

Didn’t matter. He had what he needed here.

He called in Charlie, because he needed his friend’s London underworld contacts, and Chloe, because he needed the best driver in the business. He and Sully spent more and more time in England, putting the plan together. Marlowe was still alive, still active, and still hunting for the ring. The bait they needed to find her, to steal back the other piece of Drake’s puzzle, was hanging around Nate’s neck. It was exciting and energizing, the lure of an answer and victory after all this time. He’d solve the riddles Drake left behind, finish what he’d started, and finally prove himself. This was who he was. Everything else could fall away or get stolen or leave, but he’d always have this. He had to see it through. He had to.

So it didn’t matter that he woke up in the night reaching for someone who wasn’t there or that he had to walk out of the room any time the news switched to the Middle East. This was too important.

*

She kept wearing her ring. She hated herself for it, a little bit, but she didn’t stop. Taking it off felt like admitting defeat, like giving up, and even though Nate had walked out on her and she’d moved to Yemen… she couldn’t do it. Not yet. Not until the divorce papers showed up in the mail.

Elena had thought about sending them herself, before she left for Aden, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. In a twisted, horrible way, it felt like letting him win. Like letting his obsession win, letting it take him from her for good. She couldn’t do that, not yet.

She wouldn’t contact him either, though. She had some pride left, dammit, and she’d spent enough time begging him to be a good husband. He’d been the one to leave, he was the one who had to come crawling back. Sometimes, she thought about what she’d do if he did come back, asking for forgiveness. Half the time she imagined tearful, tender reunions; the other half, she tore into him, telling him everything he’d ever done to hurt her and let her down, hitting every last one of his weak spots before slamming the door in his face. Neither fantasy made her feel any better.

Work helped. Moving to a new apartment halfway around the world helped. It was easier when the only reminders of Nate were the ring on her finger and the scarf she’d bought for him her first week in the city, picked up on a whim and paid for before she really realized that she’d probably never be able to give it to him. The scarf went into the back of a drawer, but the ring she wore every day. A reminder of what she’d lost and her own damn stubbornness, one she couldn’t bring herself to put away.

After five months, Aden had become familiar. Not home, it could never be home, not without… But it was familiar. She’d learned her way around the city, knew the language well enough to barter, built up a new network of contacts. Even the near-constant loneliness was familiar, by now. Elena shook her head at her own maudlin thoughts and kept scrolling through her news feeds, pausing every so often to nibble at her toast.

Her tablet chimed with a news alert for Syria. Reports of some kind of shootout at an ancient fortress—there weren’t many details, as the government had locked things down tight, but some visitors reported seeing a number of foreigners, either Europeans or Americans, fleeing the scene. Elena frowned, drumming her fingers on the table, and wondered if she should try to look into it at all. Ordinarily a shootout at a historical site would be simply tragic, but the involvement of outside players had her intrigued. Maybe she could—

Her ringing cell phone cut into her thoughts, and she hurried into the living room to grab it before it went to voice mail. But as soon as she picked it up and saw the name on the caller ID, she froze. She hadn’t heard from Sully beyond a couple e-mails she’d never answered and that one, horrible text he’d sent the day Nate left. For him to be calling, now, after all this time…

Elena answered the call just before it stopped ringing. “Hello?”

“Elena, hi.” Sully’s voice sounded scratchy, though she couldn’t say if it was from static or something worse. “How, uh, how’ve you been?”

She narrowed her eyes. What had happened between her and Nate wasn’t Sully’s fault, but he’d still let Nate stay with him. Had probably helped with his research on Drake, since as far as she knew Nate hadn’t walked on _him_ yet. Sully had picked a side, and while it wasn’t a surprise that he was helping Nate, it also didn’t incline her to small talk. “Is he dead?” she asked, voice sharp.

“What? No! No, he’s… no. Nate’s…” Sully trailed off into a loaded silence. “He’s fine,” he finally finished. “I am… calling about him, though.”

“I figured.”

Sully sighed, clearly picking up on her unhappiness with him. “We need your help,” he said bluntly. “Nate and I need to get into Yemen. Fast, no questions asked.”

Elena let out a harsh laugh and sank down onto her couch. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “First time you call me in months, and it’s to ask me to sneak you into a country.” She’d expect that kind of thoughtless nerve from Nate, but not Sully.

He let out another sigh, but didn’t say anything else in his defense. Probably couldn’t mount much of one. Elena shook her head. “Why do you need to get into Yemen?”

“For a job we’re on,” Sully replied. “And it’s, uh, fairly urgent.”

“Of course it is.” Elena shook her head. She could do it, probably, get them fake press passes, claim they were coming into the country as part of her film crew or something. The question was, did she want to risk her reputation for them. “Why call me?”

“Because we don’t have anyone else.” Sully sounded suddenly very, very tired. “We’ll figure out something if you can’t help, but…” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Are you okay?” Elena asked. She wasn’t happy with him at the moment, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t worry. If he was sick and Nate was still dragging him around the world…

“No, sweetheart, I’m fine.” Sully cleared his throat again, and Elena could picture him waving a hand dismissively. “Just had a long night. Rough morning.”

Under other circumstances, she’d have assumed it had something to do with his social life. But now… her gaze drifted back towards the kitchen and her tablet, still open to that story about Syria. Maybe it was a coincidence. But maybe not. She shook her head. They were in over their heads again, she could tell that much just from this call. And if she was the one to get them into the country, she could keep an eye on them. Keep them from causing too much trouble. “Fine,” she said, before she could think about it any further. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll need a couple days to pull everything together.”

“That’s fine,” Sully said with painfully obvious relief. “Thanks, Elena. You’re a godsend. Just give me a call when it’s ready.”

“I will,” Elena said. She glanced down at her wedding ring and frowned. There were a thousand questions she wanted to ask— _Is he okay? Does he miss me at all? Why hasn’t he come home?_ —but she swallowed them all. “Take care.”

“You too, sweetheart.”

She hung up the phone and dropped it to the couch, then covered her face with her hands. “The things I do for you,” she mumbled. After a moment, she pushed herself to her feet and went back to the kitchen. She was gonna need a lot of coffee for this.


End file.
